


Floating

by sukikobold



Series: Post-pacifist Ending [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Drama, Dream Sequences, Everyone comforts Sans, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Touchy-Feely, this is entirely self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 00:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5723296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sukikobold/pseuds/sukikobold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is basically that one nightmare fic you've all read before. Only it has nothing to do with the plot of the game. And everything to do with me getting my gushy emotions out on paper. Mostly surrounding Sans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Floating

Sans was floating. He wasn’t sure how he had gotten that way, or how long he had been there. It was a little disconcerting, to be sure, but relaxing in a way. I mean, heck, now he didn’t even have to put in the effort to stand, so it wasn’t all bad.

Sans realized he had been staring at something, but it hadn’t registered to him what. He blinked and found that he was staring at a sky bursting with starlight. Or could it really be called a sky? He looked below, then around him. Everywhere there were stars. And not just stars; planetoids, comets, nebulas, all against a deep backdrop of blues and violets, reds and greens. Every color imaginable. He was in space. Well, he couldn’t actually be in space. At least, that was very unlikely. He must be dreaming. That was alright. It was a good dream. Sans wondered why he didn’t have dreams like this more often.

Immediately after he thought that, the stars began to go out. Or more accurately, they were being blotted out. An inky blackness was spreading and engulfing every light, every color in the vast space before him. Sans didn’t know what to do. What had happened? What had he done wrong? In a matter of moments he was in a blank, black void.

Then the voices came. They arrived so quickly and in unison, he had no idea of the number of them or what direction they were from. It was like a radio tuning into every station at once. At first it was just noisy and discomforting. Then fragments began to come out clearly, one after the other, delivering snippets of thoughts before sinking back into the ocean of noise. They were never happy. He heard shouts of anger, condescension, cruelty, anguish. Each seemed worse than the last, and yet they kept coming. Every voice was different but further multiplied the effect.

Sans squeezed his eyes shut. That made no difference. It only seemed to make them louder. He covered his head with his arms but that made no difference either. He wanted to run, to escape this somehow, but there was nothing to run on. He wanted to do something, anything to fight back. With everything he could muster, he screamed.

They died down. Sans opened his eyes. He was still in inky blackness, but the voices had diminished. He released his head, cautiously looking up into the nothingness. Had…he won?

In an instant they returned. They were screaming, deafening, pounding down on him, and they weren’t alone this time. Now there was a mass of things he couldn’t see pressing in on him from every side. It hurt each time one of them touched him. He couldn’t move. He could barely breathe. He tried to scream again with what energy he had left. Nothing changed. He was trapped. There was nothing but noise, darkness and pain.

Then there was something else. Something…warm. It was small; a tiny touch amidst the crushing mass of cold and hurt, but it was close. The warmth pressed itself into his chest. Sans wanted to reach out to it. He wanted to hold it and pull it as close as he possibly could, but his arms refused to move. He was still trapped. Then the pressure increased. The screams penetrated every inch of his skull. He almost wanted to die if it would end all of this.

Suddenly something grabbed him. It pulled him back and he fell. He fell down and down, away from the voices and the black, with the warm presence still clinging to his chest.

 

Sans started awake. His breath was shaky and labored, and he didn’t notice the weight on top of him right away. Not until it reached up and touched his cheek. His gaze flashed downwards. The child’s face that was looking back at him was sad, almost on the verge of tears.

“Sans?” she asked. He blinked and suddenly noticed the wetness in his eyes. It was the same wetness she was wiping from his face.

“Frisk?” he said, barely audible. This earned him a small, brief smile before Frisk buried her face back into his chest.

“Thank goodness,” came another voice close to his head. It was then Sans realized he was being held. A bone-thin hand rubbed his shoulder gently.

“Brother, are you alright?”

Papyrus was sitting on their couch, holding both him and Frisk in a loose cradle. In daylight, Sans would probably be embarrassed by it.

“Sans?” Papyrus spoke again, after a few moments of silence. Sans looked at his brother. He wore the same expression that Frisk had. Sadness. Concern. Had Sans woken both of them? Sans sighed and his tense, shaking body began to relax. Papyrus didn’t say anything else. He just continued to rub Sans’s shoulder softly. Sans thought for a moment about getting up and thanking them for their concern, but assuring them that it was only a bad dream and he would be fine now. Maybe throw a joke in to ease the mood.

“Sans.” Frisk’s small voice grabbed his attention. He looked back at her. “You don’t have to tell us what happened. Not unless you want to. But we’re here for you, okay?”

“Hah.” Sans’s breath came out almost as a laugh, though he felt closer to tears than anything. “Sorry,” was all he could manage while keeping his voice steady.

“Don’t be, Sans,” said Papyrus, “I’m sorry we couldn’t wake you up sooner.”

Sans smiled and found himself very sleepy all of a sudden. With his panic gone, exhaustion was quickly setting in. He fell against his brother’s shoulder with Frisk’s arms still wrapped around his middle. Papyrus adjusted his grip to hold both of them in place and rested his skull on Sans’s. Drifting quickly back into slumber, Sans prayed he wouldn’t fall back into the same dream. He didn’t.

 

* * *

 

Also hey, I wrote this basically because I made a picture and had a lot of feelings about the picture.

So there you go.


End file.
